Adelheid Cross
The Adelheid Cross is a reliquary cross from the 11th and 12th centuries in St. Paul Abbey in Lavanttal . It was donated by Queen Adelheid of Hungary , daughter of Rudolf von Rheinfelden , was in the monastery of St. Blasien until the 19th century and then came to St. Paul. The cross consists of a wooden core, is covered with gold-plated silver sheet and bears gems , precious stones and pearls on the front . It is 82.9 cm high, 65.4 cm wide and 7.4 to 7.8 cm deep.
description
From the central square of the cross go the four arms, the lower one of which is longer than the others. The ends of the arms are expanded into squares.
On the front, the arm surfaces are divided into three parts lengthways, with the middle part raised by around one centimeter, the same as the adjacent squares at the ends of the arms. All areas are divided into smaller fields. Each field is symmetrically decorated with a large gemstone in the middle, four smaller ones in the corner, and pearls or gold-plated metal buttons. The areas in between are filled with filigree spiral tendrils. The gemstones are no longer completely preserved. There are still 147 from the original 170: among these 47 amethysts , 22 carnelians , 17 agates , 13 rock crystals , 7 moonstones , 6 garnets , 5 chalcedones , 5 onyxes , 4 almandines , 4 heliotropes , 3 turquoises , 2 beryls , 2 serpentines and each a lapis lazuli , emerald , milk opal and smoky quartz . In the middle square there used to be an unusually large cross particle. When this was transferred to a new reliquary at the end of the 17th century, a piece of wood in a gilded copper mount was inserted into the Adelheid cross, into which two small pieces of cross were inserted crosswise. This relic is still in the Adelheid Cross today.
The back of the cross was created under the St. Blasian Abbot Gunther von Andlau (1141–1170). It is covered with gold sheet in which figurative representations and inscriptions are engraved with a graver. In the middle the blessing Christ is enthroned in a mandorla . In the squares at the ends of the arms, the symbols for the four evangelists , surrounded by banners, are shown: above the eagle of John , on the right the bull of Luke , on the left the lion of Mark and below the angel of Matthew . The arms show two angels at the top, two apostles each on the left and right: inside Peter and John, outside probably Paul and Andrew or James . The lower arm is only incompletely preserved and shows four figures: directly beneath Christ is a seated Mother of God, beneath her the founder of the reverse, Abbot Gunther, with a clergyman with a miter at his side. At the bottom two deacons, one of whom can be identified as a monk by the tonsure . All three are by haloes in the Holy. In analogy to the Gothic high altar of St. Blasien, Blasius , Stephanus and Laurentius are assumed to be in the saints .
The inscriptions on the back name the dedication by Adelheid and the later one by Abbot Gunther, as well as the names of the saints, whose relics were probably located in the long rectangular openings on the front and in the holes in individual gemstones.
The side surfaces are provided with an embossed ribbon mesh, probably from the time of Abbot Gunther. The ribbon braid is two rows and four strands.
history
The history of the cross is recorded in two sources: the Liber constructionis from the 12th century and the Liber originum from the 16th century. The large cross particle was donated by Queen Adelheid, the wife of King Ladislaus I of Hungary, to St. Blasien Abbey, along with 70 gold pieces for a corresponding version. The occasion was the burial of her mother in St. Blasien in 1079, Adelheid also decreed that she should be buried here herself. The relic supposedly came from her brother-in-law, Ceysa. Abbot at the time of the donation was Giselbert (1068-1086), the cross was completed under his successor Uto von Kyburg (1086-1108) according to a traditional inscription on the foot of the cross that has not been preserved . The graves or an associated altar are therefore assumed to be the destination. In many cases, the cross was also seen as a replacement insignia for Adelheid's father Rudolf von Rheinfelden , who was anti-king from 1077 to 1080, as a replacement for the imperial cross . Other authors consider this unlikely, also due to the lack of sources.
Today's back was made later under Abbot Gunther (1141–1170) and Gunther is also named as the client in the inscription on the back. The sources cite doubts about the authenticity of the large cross particles as the reason for this late "completion", which was only dispelled by a divine judgment under Gunther. Today this legend is interpreted as an attempt to "prove" the authenticity of the relic or to legitimize the changes on the cross, which was probably hardly incomplete. Swabia is assumed to be the origin of the reverse. The shape of the cross is based - like other crosses in Cologne, Hildesheim or Osnabrück - on the Reichskreuz , the most important cross reliquary at the time. It is the largest reliquary cross from this period and even exceeds the Reichskreuz in height. It only shares the square bar closures and the square central field with the imperial cross. The tripartite division of the arms occurs several times in medieval gold crosses, such as the Ardennes Cross (now the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg) or the Cruz de la Victoria (treasure of the Cathedral of Oviedo ), and thus refers to traditions from the first Christian millennium.
What is striking on the cross is that there is no prominent inscription and no picture of the donor. It is believed that these were removed during the reworking under Abbot Gunther. The reworking went hand in hand with a changed use: if the cross was initially on the grave of Adelheid, it was now used for liturgical purposes. This also corresponds to the intentions of the church reforms at that time, in which St. Blasien was a leader. The cross relic was designed to be removable under Gunther, the relic is fully visible here. In comparable crosses, the relic is located behind a rock crystal, and the four gemstones in the corners of the middle field suggest a gemstone in the middle.
Baroque copy
Under Abbot Romanus Vogler (1672–1695) a baroque cross was made for the cross relic. Similar to the original, it looked much more monumental than the original thanks to the rich gemstones, the volute approaches at the ends of the cross and a halo on the central part. It was completed in 1688, but was not put into use until 1696 when the cross particles were inserted. The replica of the cross particles described above was used in the original. The baroque cross has been missing since the Napoleonic Wars; it was probably made to Vienna in 1810 as a contribution from St. Paul to the Austrian war contributions. The appearance is known from a copper engraving from 1734. Both crosses came to the re-established St. Paul Abbey with the monks in 1809 after the secularization of St. Blasien.
Third reliquary
Abbot Berthold Rottler had a new reliquary made for the cross particles themselves . It is made of gold-plated silver and decorated with diamonds, emeralds, rock crystal and enamel. It is 67.5 cm high, 38.5 cm wide. The cross rests on a transversely oval foot 25 cm wide and 19.5 cm high. At the top of the foot, four cherubim carry a wreath of flowers, from here an acanthus leaf leads over to the cross. The ends of the cross bars are decorated with three passes with palmette decorations. There are bundles of rays in the spandrels of the cross beams. The cross beams themselves are occupied by the cross relic and its frame, which is covered on both sides by rock crystals but is completely visible. On the front, the viewing opening is surrounded by a silver frame with diamonds. Around this frame are a row of emeralds. The framing corresponds to that of 1688/1696, even if the number of precious stones is lower today. The rock crystals are likely to be the original ones from the 13th century. All in all , the cross is a high-quality overall design , with the base showing rather late Baroque shapes, the decor corresponds to the wealth of forms of the Empire. The cross particle itself consists of three parts and contains parts of a nail hole and therefore represents a particularly valuable part of the cross.
supporting documents
- Klaus Gereon Beuckers : Adelheid Cross (Reichskreuz) . In: Gerfried Sitar, Martin Kroker (ed.): Power of the word. Benedictine monasticism in the mirror of Europe. Volume II: Catalog . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7954-2125-0 , pp. 348-50.
- Hermann Fillitz : The Adelheid Cross from St. Blasien . In: Carinthia's treasure house. State exhibition St. Paul 1991. 900 years of the Benedictine monastery. Volume II contributions . ISBN 3-85378-377-5 , pp. 665-680.
- Karl Ginhart : Reliquary Cross of Queen Adelheid. In: Karl Ginhart (Ed.): The art monuments of the Benedictine monastery St. Paul in Lavanttal and its branch churches (= Austrian Art Topography Volume XXXVII), Verlag Anton Schroll, Vienna 1969, pp. 217–224.
Individual evidence
- ^ Hermann Fillitz: The Adelheid Cross from St. Blasien . In: Carinthia's treasure house. State exhibition St. Paul 1991. 900 years of the Benedictine monastery. Volume II contributions . ISBN 3-85378-377-5 , p. 674.
- ^ KG Beuckers: Adelheid cross (Reichskreuz) . In: Gerfried Sitar, Martin Kroker (ed.): Power of the word. Benedictine monasticism in the mirror of Europe. Volume II: Catalog . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7954-2125-0 , p. 348.
- ↑ The section is based on: Holger Kempkens: Kreuzreliquiar . In: Gerfried Sitar, Martin Kroker (ed.): Power of the word. Benedictine monasticism in the mirror of Europe. Volume II: Catalog . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7954-2125-0 , p. 350f.